Learning from Lucy
By Wolves in the Walls director Pete Billington
SHOULD....
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DELIVER A BELIEVABLE, SPECIFIC EMOTIONAL PERFORMANCE
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MAINTAIN THE ILLUSION OF LIFE INDEPENDENT OF THE LINEAR NARRATIVE
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RELATE TO HER SURROUNDINGS IN AN NON-DETERMINISTIC WAY
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REACT TO AUDIENCE AGENCY IN A WAY THAT IS CONSISTENT WITH HER PASSIONS
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APPEAR TO HAVE A MEMORY OF PREVIOUS EVENTS
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EVOKE A SENSE OF DELIBERATE, STYLIZED CONSISTENCY IN DESIGN, BEHAVIOR AND PERFORMANCE.
WHEN WE SHOW WOLVES TO PEOPLE, WE OFTEN OBSERVE THEM TALKING TO HER, SOMETIMES OPENLY AND IN UNEXPECTED WAYS. ALL OF THIS POINTS TO A FUTURE WHERE PEOPLE WILL HAVE ONGOING, PERSISTENT RELATIONSHIPS WITH CHARACTERS ACROSS ALL TYPES OF MEDIA. IT IS SOMETHING THAT WE ARE VERY EXCITED TO EXPLORE.
See the full story here: https://www.virtual-beings-summit.com/content/the-evolution-of-lucy?fbclid=IwAR3YD-htNPjuaKQOjY0aPmBGO2A06wkt_lOqeCNv2Jj7AMyjVYb2QZZoEJc
Andreessen Horowitz values camping business Hipcamp at $127M
In 2013, Ravasio learned to code and built the first iteration of the Hipcamp platform, a comprehensive database of campsites that earns money by taking a commission made from each booking it facilitates. Today, the company has grown to 40 employees, with campsites in 300,000 sites across the U.S. and plans to expand internationally soon.
“We’re committed to getting people outside, and that’s really the guiding light of our expansion plans,” she said.
As for long-term plans, an Airbnb acquisition wouldn’t make sense, Ravasio explained: “I think going public and making Hipcamp a company that anyone can buy and own part of is exciting to me”
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/24/hipcamp/?utm_medium=TCnewsletter&tpcc=TCdailynewsletter
An educational augmented reality toy kids actually seem to like
A technology startup focusing on AR experiences for kids just landed $7 million in Series A funding. PlayShifu, founded by two dads, has won awards for its technology while gathering an impressive early user base for its flagship product, a toy globe onto which children can project AR exploration experiences using a tablet.
The company's early success is especially notable given how difficult the children's technology market is to penetrate.
The globe, called the Shifu Orboot, has a US user base of more than 100,000 kids, according to the company, with high engagement among 4-8-year-olds.
While most children's apps retain less than 10 percent of children users after the first month, the company says its tracking shows that more than 40 percent of kids continued using Orboot in the second month of ownership.
See the full story here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/an-educational-augmented-reality-toy-kids-actually-seem-to-like/
Virtual reality tool that reads and projects your brain waves investigated as a way to promote sleepiness
Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne recently investigated whether this kind of interactive virtual reality experience could induce feelings of restfulness and sleepiness.
The multisensory experience involves lying on a gently vibrating bed and wearing a VR headset and is based on the principles of neurofeedback, which uses real-time displays of brain activity to teach regulation of mental states.
During the experience, which was originally conceived as a public art project called Inter-Dream, the brain's electrical activity is monitored via an electroencephalogram (or EEG) and fed into the participant's VR headset.
"We assigned different colours and properties that the visuals take on in response to those different brainwaves," Mr Semertzidis said.
The result? A unique, sometimes mesmerising visual representation that changes in response to the brain's electrical activity.
Dr Kirkcaldie said there was value in developing tools that help people relax before going to sleep, especially in a day and age that's permeated by devices "extremely good at getting our attention".
"If you end up being unable to wind down … then I do think a process that gives you feedback and an understanding of when you are winding down is probably of great value."
See the full story here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2019-07-24/virtual-reality-tool-investigated-to-promote-sleep/11323134
MIT develops tiny ‘walking’ motor that helps more complex robots self-assemble
The motor above is little more than a magnet and coil with some structural parts, but it can “walk” back and forth or make the gears of a more complicated machine move back and forth.
On its own, this little moving microbe is impressive enough, but its real potential lies in what could happen were it to be assembled with others of its ilk, and with other building-block robotics components made up of simple parts, which is the vision of Gershenfeld and his research team.
Previously, they’ve already shown that other core components can be assembled from the same limited set of fundamental ingredients, and in the future, the idea is that these tiny core machines could actually automatically self-assemble into larger structures capable of carrying out specific tasks.
See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/02/mit-develops-tiny-walking-motor-that-help-more-complex-robots-self-assemble/